Sepsis is an uncontrolled activation of the immune system that causes an excessive inflammatory response. There is an unmet need to develop tools to monitor sepsis progression, which occurs quickly and provides few clues to indicate if treatment is effective. One molecular aspect of sepsis progression is leukocyte activation, which plays an important role in the immune response. Surface markers and cytokines are existing measures of leukocyte activation, however the time needed to assay them precludes their use in real time.
Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods to address the above mentioned problems.